Department of Mathematics
Lori Ogden
Teaching Assistant Professor, Mathematics
I have taught the following courses at WVU:
Teaching Philosophy

My philosophy of teaching has evolved over years of teaching experience in both secondary and higher education and will continue to evolve as I encounter new students, new ideas, and new technologies. I believe that effective teaching is grounded in an inherent love of learning. My mission in all classes that I teach is to provide my students with the skills necessary to become lifelong learners. To accomplish this I enjoy applying a wide variety of strategies based on essential educational principles encompassing cognitive and socio-cultural learning theory, diversity issues, and instructional planning and assessment.

From a constructivist learning perspective, I believe that students enter mathematics classes in higher education with different holes and gaps in their background knowledge as well as different levels of maturity, interest and motivation. All teachers are charged with how to address this wide range of learners' needs. While post-secondary teachers must teach mathematics to build upon their students' existing knowledge, they must also convince students that mathematics is useful and that their learning is possible and worth their time and effort. For me, it is a given that effective instructors have a strong content knowledge base, can clearly communicate, have high expectations, and are accessible outside of class; however, it is the affective component of student learning that is often overlooked. I believe that math anxiety is real and that an effective teacher can mediate its effects by implementing various teaching strategies.

One way I have mediated the effects of math anxiety is through the design and development of a flipped classroom teaching model. The flipped classroom teaching model is pedagogical design that replaces what typically takes place during a face-to-face lecture (passive transfer of knowledge) with engaging activities and assigns the lecture as homework for students to complete autonomously outside of class. The flipped classroom approach has helped me provide my students with a solid knowledge base through at-home instruction and an opportunity to apply that knowledge in engaging classroom activities. Throughout my study of this model, I have learned that by providing a nurturing classroom environment and becoming a facilitator of understanding rather than a distributer of knowledge, one can turn what once was seen as a boring lecture hall into a rich and active learning environment. By establishing classroom norms such as asking and answering questions and working with peers to solve problems, students are able to identify their own deficiencies and learn how to resolve them autonomously. I actually had one student say, "I learned how to ask better questions in your class" and when I asked her what a better question was, she said, "I finally knew what to ask."

In my opinion, one of the best ways for me to assess deep student understanding is to interact with my students and give them the opportunity to talk with me about what they know and what they do not know. One of the many benefits of my flipped classroom is the time I have in class to interact with my students. Often math anxious students are afraid to ask questions for fear of looking bad in front of their peers. In my flipped classroom, I can give students one on one attention, address their individual needs, and give them the opportunity to ask questions.

I know that many students in entry level mathematics courses are there because they have to be and not because they want to be. I see teaching mathematics as a unique opportunity to change their mind; to convince them that mathematics is useful and worth their time and energy.